Fortin’s exploration of the life challenges that had brought the womyn together and the sisterhood that grew from cycling and reclaiming the streets as a group elicited cheers from readers here and around the country.

Then the Ovas decided to hold a “Clitoral Mass” bike ride to celebrate their two-year anniversary and some folks lost their damn minds.

While the idea of carving out space for womyn and womyn-identified folks — particularly those of color — who don’t feel their experiences are validated or welcome in other cycling spaces is not terribly controversial right now, conversations around equity, inclusion, and the mobility of those on the margins had yet to really take root in the livable streets movement. So, the idea of a female (identified)-centric ride caused a bit of a stir.

The Ovas were accused of exclusion by some and of misandry by a (thankfully) small minority of disgruntled men. Some of the critics threatened to show up and crash the ride. A few even took it upon themselves to organize a counter-balancing ride for “Brovarian Psychos,” where those poor and oppressed (and grammatically-challenged) souls seeking to promote “man-ism, jism, mens’ rights, reform of family court, selective service, anti-male stereotypes, to counter-manginas and white knights, and restore balance to the force” could finally feel supported.

The Ovas’ visibility has helped change stereotypes about who bikes and complicated the conversation around what cycling and, more broadly, accessing the public space, means to different communities.

For many urbanists, “reclaiming” the streets means staking out physical space for people with things like pedestrian bump-outs or open streets events. For groups like the Ovas, “reclaiming” space is about shining a light on how the social, cultural, and economic landscapes of a city intersect with the physical one. Consequently, their ride events serve as vehicles for advancing social justice, elevating the voices of those on the margins, demanding freedom from harassment by law enforcement (for people of color) and/or misogynists, asserting cultural self-determination, promoting pride in their community, connecting to their heritage, and lending strength and power to other womyn and womyn-identified folks.

A bike ride, in other words, is never just a bike ride.

“I will grow up to be loved and respected as a strong woman.” From the first Clitoral Mass event. Sahra Sulaiman/Streetsblog L.A.

But if there is one thing that has become clear over the years that I have been on the communities beat for Streetsblog, it is that, unless someone comes from an experience of marginalization, it can be hard for them to understand how it impacts every aspect of your life — particularly your movement through the public space — or why finding spaces that validate your voice matter so much.

Which is why I have high hopes for the feature documentary the Ovas will debut at SXSW this year.

The film follows three of the Ovas — founder Xela de la X, artist Andi Xoch, and newcomer Evie Martinez — as they balance activism and leadership with their obligations to themselves and their families in the context of the working-class Latino community of Boyle Heights.

It’s thrilling to know that such an incredible group of womyn will be given a national platform from which to invite people into their lives and journey to forge their own “hybrid form of urban feminism,” as filmmakers Kate Trumbull-Lavalle and Joanna Sokolowski call it.

Nerdily, it’s also exciting from a livable streets perspective in that viewers of the urban planning persuasion may be able to see firsthand why and how, for womyn like Xela, Andi, and Evie, truly and equitably reclaiming the streets for everyone requires more than investments in basic infrastructure.

The film, according to the Kickstarter page, is just about finished. But filmmakers need funds to finalize the film and take the stars of it to SXSW to speak at the screening.

Specifically, they are asking for help in doing:

Online and Color Correction

Archival licensing

Graphics & Animation

Sound mix

Legal fees

A PR team

Community Outreach

Bringing Xela, Andi and Evie to SXSW (flight, hotel, etc.)

They are about $2,300 from their goal right now, with just under two days of fundraising left. If you’d like to help out, check out their Kickstarter page. If you’d like to learn more about the Ovas, check out their Facebook page, here.

*Y con ganas is hard to translate, but “wholeheartedly” might be one literal interpretation. Here, it is meant more to say they are in the fight for the long haul.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

(This is the second of a two-part series. To read the first part how the Ovarian Psycos started, click here.) Whether they are charras on bikes like Ova Andrea Ramirez says they are, they work hard to make Ovarian-Psyco Bicycle Brigade work. Though the all-female Latina bicycle collective turned out mostly Latina, the group is open to […]

“The first [bike] ride I took Leah on was the Black-Brown Unity ride two years ago,” says Maryann Aguirre, member of the Ovarian Psyco-Cycles Bicycle Brigade, a cycling group comprised of women of color based in Boyle Heights, “and I was f*cking dying!” Pedaling the 12 miles the route wound between Boyle Heights and Watts […]

Looking out over the growing group of women and women-identified folks gathering on the grassy knoll behind Olvera St. for the Ovarian Pscyo-Cycles 4th Annual Clitoral Mass ride, I realized that, despite having attended the previous three events, I only recognized a handful of the riders. Considering there were probably more than 200 cyclists on […]

(We’re working on a photo essay tomorrow following up on today’s story. So, come back Monday. D) Two months ago, when 22-year-old Bree’Anna Guzman was murdered in Lincoln Heights, the all-women bike group Ovarian-Pscyos Bicycle Brigade scrapped their previously planned ride to ride instead through the neighborhood to protest the killing. “Whose Streets,” one woman […]

“How many of you have ever been here to the Watts Towers before?” asked one of the young women inside the growing circle of women cyclists who gathered to participate in the Ovarian Psyco-Cycles’ Second Annual Clitoral Mass. By the time we arrived, about 60+ women of varying ages and backgrounds had already gathered in […]

The recent tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri, and here at home in South L.A. have served to underscore just how hostile the public space can be to people of color, particularly those of lesser means. For those that live that reality day in and day out in Los Angeles, that is not news. I’ve documented […]